Interesting. This blog post about the “Era of Open Energy Information” mentions the use of APIs, allowing developers to build their own tools that pulls in energy data. Makes perfect sense, but hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before. Still not quite sure I understand how the data is extracted from the smart grid receiver, but I’m assuming someone has figured that problem out. As we’ve seen proven on the web over and over again, once you open up the data nerds will find something fun to do with it. Of course there are some dangers of privacy, etc., but that’s the case with any new technology …
Posts Tagged ‘api’
Smart Grid APIs
Thursday, October 8th, 2009Opening Up Some Data
Thursday, May 21st, 2009I was thinking some more today about something I mentioned the other day in the visualizing health post. Specifically, “it might be fun to try and get our hands on this data” that makes up the GE health visualizer.
One of the things we’ve been chatting with GE about a lot is about letting things live free on the web. This is why this blog is structured the way it is and lots of the ideas that have come out of it are about just that. A great example of that sort of behavior is an API.
In laymen’s terms an API basically allows a computer program to ask another computer program for some information which it relays back in a format that was agreed upon beforehand. The term gets thrown around a lot in terms of mashups and one of the better known APIs (though I doubt most people realize it) is the one that goes along with Google Maps. Basically what Google did when they launched their maps application is make it super easy for developers to build stuff on top. Pretty much immediately after launch lots of new Google Maps mashups popped up that tapped the technology.
In this case the business results are immediately obvious: First, Google let everyone else promote their new maps service for them and second, it outsourced it’s R&D. Rather than deciding what features to build immediately it sat back and watched what the internet made on top and then built those features in to later versions. The most obvious example of this is My Maps. Basically it allows a non-programmer to do the first thing everyone did when they saw what Google Maps could handle: Build a map with your favorite spots. So, rather than building it in initially they waited and watched.
Okay, so back to GE and healthcare generally. There is an insane amount of data out there in the healthosphere. Much of it is personal and confidential, but lots of it is likely scrubbed and eager to be dug into (kind of like the stuff that goes into the Health Visualizer). We’re working on trying to figure out a way to organize and release some of that for the world (and us) to experiment with.